Conventionally, a facsimile apparatus including a function of outputting a communication management report is known. With this communication management report, a user can check the communication result, the number of pages, the time and date of the communication, the time period necessary for the communication, etc., of a facsimile. For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-232570 describes such a facsimile apparatus that has stored therein a transmission history including a transmitted image of a facsimile and that enables a user to retrieve the transmitted image using this transmission history.
The facsimile apparatus described in the above Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-232570 stores picture information of a document read by a scanner and adds title information (the name of the item) to the picture information. In addition, it makes possible to output a communication management report that has the name of the item transmitted and retrieve the picture information transmitted by creating communication management information indicative of a transmission history including code information of the title information and storing the picture information transmitted and its code information by equating with each other.
However, though the facsimile apparatus of the above Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-232570 is able to retrieve specific information from a plurality of transmission histories described in a communication management report using the title information as a retrieval key, the cases where a user forgets the title information or where the transmission content can not be identified from the title information arise when a lot of transmission histories are accumulated. In these cases, a problem arises that it takes a long time for a user to retrieve desired information.